Need some help

My father passed away last year and I received a few guns and some ammo,I also have this thing that looks like a rifle casing and it is split about half way up into four pieces.There is no primer but a piece runs through the middle with a pin inside and it had a .380 pistol round plugged into it. It matched up to a 30-30 but a little shorter-it has the word varble's or marble's usa no167 anybody seen one of these?